A Mature Thing to Do
by Hekko
Summary: Hermione has to prove she's more mature than Snape. Only, can she outsmart a Slytherin?


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter NOR any of his friends NEITHER any of his enemies. It's hard to admit, but when I'm done with them all, I have to return them to Joanne K. Rowling in an original wrapping and unharmed. I make no money, I mean no harm.

* * *

**A Mature Thing to Do**

* * *

Hermione reread the last sentence to make sure she understood it well and turned the page. Her parchment was filling with notes on the Potions essay about antidotes, more detailed than required, as usually. A paragraph later the young witch frowned. Wolsbane was mentioned as a possible substitute for dragon blood in some special cases, but the book provided no further details. Hermione got up and started searching the library bookshelves. It was then when she heard her name uttered by a familiar voice. 

"It's Granger, I'm telling you."

"Why would _he_ let the mudblood bother him?" another voice replied sceptically. Hermione peered around the corner. A few Slytherins sat around a table, Zabini with his boots on the desk, Pansy Parkinson trying to write something down on a parchment before her, Crabbe and Goyle trying hard to look at least a bit intelligent (it didn't work) and Malfoy pacing impatiently between the shelves.

"She's damn too perfect," Malfoy said. "She knows the right answer to every Snape's question."

"We all know she's just a bloody know-it-all," Parkinson spat. "She probably memorises every textbook over the summer."

"Pansy, that wouldn't do. The questions he asks... I haven't even heard of half of the potions. It's far beyond the schoolwork. I think Snape's trying to beat her. To find something she _doesn't_ know." He leaned against a bookshelf, scolding.

"Well, beat her, that's the spirit!" Goyle said, finally catching up on something he understood. Hermione looked around to find the quickiest way out and checked her wand was in her pocket.

"No!" Now Hermione blinked and stopped backing away.

"What, Draco, going soft on a mudblood?" Zabini snarled.

"I'm not going soft!" Malfoy cried out a tad too irritated. Immediately he seemed to calm down. "I just think that's not going to work, that's all."

"And what you suggest we do?" some other boy who Hermione didn't recognise said. "We're going to lose the next Quidditch match because our Head of House doesn't care a flick about it. He hasn't arranged for a special training since January. And last week he gave half of the team detention for some stupid reason as if we were some blasted Gryffindors. Any good ideas? Any ideas at all?" Sounds of moving feet reminded Hermione that she was standing just a bookshelf away from a bunch of Slytherins who happenned to be angry with her. She quickly retreated to her table, pretending to continue to work on her essay. But in fact, she had her mind on the teacher rather than the subject itself.

Was Malfoy right? Did she bother Snape so much? Of course, she had noticed the change in Snape's behaviour. At first it had suprised her. Snape had rarely asked her anything, knowing she would answer correctly. But these questions had been more difficult, more challenging. It was like a small competition and she liked it.

Correction: She had liked it.

Now that she knew something was wrong with the Professor she could recall he had looked unwell lately, tired and anxious. And the fact that he had lost all the patience he had used to show to his Slytherins was alarming. Hermione stood up and quickly packed her things, choosing one book to borrow from the library.

If all she had to do was to let Snape beat her, as Malfoy had put it, it was something she could cope with. It's, after all, very mature to let a desperate person win. The thought made her smile in a sly, almost Slytherin way.

* * *

"What happenned?" a female voice demanded. 

"How am I supposed to know?" a male voice answered angrily. "I found her unconscious under a staircase. There was no one else around, and since she does not belong into my House, it is not my business to find out how she managed to hurt herself." Hermione closed her hand upon some firm fabric. A characteristic smell hit her nostrils - she was no doubt in the hospital wing. The female voice she had heard belonged to Madame Pomfrey and as the fog was clearing from her mind, she recognised Professor Snape as the other participant of the conversation.

She wondered who had fallen down the stairs and opened her eyes. Then the pain hit her.

Oh, she thought, so it was me.

"Miss Granger?" Madame Pomfrey called gently. "Miss Granger, do you remember what happenned?" Hermione blinked and searched her memory.

"I was on my way from the library back to our Common Room to drop my school stuff before dinner," she began slowly. "Someone called my name when I was climbing stairs, I turned and then... something hit me."

"Did you see anybody?" Hermione shook her head and hastily closed her eyes again, face screwed in pain.

"Hermione? Hermione!" She opened one eye and smiled, however weakly, at her best friends.

"Leaving, Severus? I want to talk to you," McGonagall's strict and cold voice snapped.

"Do not look at me as if I have hurt her."

"You haven't, but your students have." Snape didn't say anything, so McGonagall continued: "Apparently three of them found it very funny to hit another student with a curse from behind, causing her fall down the stairs."

"Why would they do that?" Snape responded agressivelly.

"Oh, well, they call her mudblood every time they meet her..." Ron started shouted.

"Ron..." Hermione tried.

"Maybe they don't need a special reason!"

"Ron!"

"As if it wasn't true!" Ron turned to Hermione.

"Ron, I have a headache, could you please shut up?" She said it more harshly than she intended, but she didn't mind. A batalion of drunken and loud house-elves was throwing a party in her head, or at least it felt like they were, and all she wanted to was to fall asleep - or pass out again - and stay like that until the party was over.

"But..."

"Silence, Mr. Weasley, or are you unable to follow an instruction as clear as this one?"

Madame Pomfrey chose that moment for returning into the infirmary and immediately took in the situation. She threw everybody out, wildly protesting Ron and Harry included, closed curtains around Hermione's bed and treated the girl with a couple of potions, followed by healing spells.

* * *

Hermione had to stay in the hospital wing for three days. She used the time not only for studying in peace, but also for thinking over what she had heard in the library. She didn't give up on her plan. Luckily, there was a teest on Potions the very first lesson she was going to attend. If she could do terribly - just this one time... 

Ron and Harry accompanied her through the corridors, escorting her even to Arithmancy, before leaving for Divination. Ron was hovering close to Hermione's left shoulder, glaring evilly at every single Slytherin they met. When he spotted Malfoy leaning against a wall next to the Arithmancy classroom, Ron snorted. Malfoy eyed Hermione up and down, then averted his gaze.

"What, looking what more damage you can do?" Ron snapped.

"Shut up, Weasel," Malfoy responded without looking at them.

"Need silence to plan something else nasty?" Malfoy turned face to Ron, slowly, but didn't say anything, just glaring at him deadly.

Hermione suddenly remembered how Malfoy objected Goyle's suggestion in the library.

"Or are you too..."

"Shut up, Ron," Hermione said tiredly.

Malfoy stopped staring. Ron started staring. Harry just looked at his watch, said: "We should go or we will be late," and practically dragged Ron away.

* * *

Hermione didn't wait for Ron and Harry after Arithmancy; instead she headed straight for the dungeons. Lost in thoughts, she almost ran into a pair of older Slytherin. She had seen one of them in the library. 

"Ah," said one of them with an evil look in his eyes. "Here's the mudblood... don't have your bodyguards here, now do you?" Hermione reached for her wand, feeling very threaten.

"Professor McGonagall, may I ask you something?" Malfoy's voice came from behind a corner. The two Slytherin winced, turned away from Hermione and hurried down the corridor, disappearing around the first corner available. Hermione waited for Malfoy to join her.

"Let me guess," she said quietly, "if I looked around the corner, there would be no Professor there." Malfoy shrugged and muttered something about bad eyes and seeing a healer soon.

"Thank you," Hermione added.

"These two idiots of friends should watch you better," he responded. Hermione shot a glance at his face. He shrugged again and continued: "We don't need McGonagall jumping at our necks again. After all, one of that two is on the Quidditch team." Hermione had an unclear feeling Malfoy wasn't completely honest about his motives but decided not to push the matter.

Ron and Harry were waiting before the Potions classroom. Both looked surprised when they spotted Hermione coming with the Slytherin Prince and Ron tried to kill him with a cold gaze.

"You alright?" Harry asked.

"Oh, well, thanks to Draco here, yes, I am," she replied in a low voice, so no one else could hear her.

"Since when is he Draco?" Hermione blushed and told the boys what had just happenned.

Then the door opened and Hermione braced herself for the first real failure of her academical life.

She knew there was a test planned for the lesson and she made sure she learned as much as possible about the topic... so that she could answer completely incorrectly. She could survive one single bad mark, the rest of her work would make up for it.

Snape didn't waste time on telling the students what to do, just handed out clean parchments and tapped the blackboard with questions. Hermione smiled to herself. Giving the correct answers was easy for her, inventing wrong ones seemed to be funny.

After some thirty minutes of hard fabricating Snape stopped behind her back. She could feel his eyes roaming over her parchment and suppressed a content smile.

"Miss Granger," Snape's voice cut into her happy thoughts, "are you feeling well?"

"Yes, Sir," she answered in a timid voice. Something went wrong.

"I do not think so." Something went _terribly_ wrong. "Is there anyone who has finished their work already?" One hand hovered over the mass of students' heads. "Excellent." Snape summoned the parchment and scanned the answers quickly. "Mr. Malfoy, would you accompany Miss Granger to the hospital wing?"

"But..." Hermione tried to resist.

"Now, please." With a wave of Snape's wand, Hermione's quill and ink bottle returned to her bag, which flew in Malfoy's hand.

"Er... yes, sir," the blonde stuttered.

Hermione had no other chance than to follow him out of the classroom. She felt angst building in her.

"Give me that bag, I'm more than capable of taking care of my belongings."

"And I thought you didn't feel well," he sounded amused but handed her her bag.

"I feel completely well, apart from that I just failed the test just..." she trailed off, not willing to share her plan with a Slytherin.

No difference it was the very Slytherin who had inspired her in the beginning.

"Oh, let me guess. You did it on purpose?"

* * *

"The thing is he's not going to accept a _cheap_ victory," Draco mused half an hour later sitting on the table Hermione was sitting at. They had found an old unused classroom and Hermione had mildly impressed Draco with a swift and efficient Scourgify. Their initial discussion had turned to a lesson on Slytherins that Hermione had been soaking in with eyes wide open. 

Draco wasn't sure whether to be pleased with this sudden and unexpected attention he was getting or disgusted by Hermione's ignorance. He pulled his tie of his neck and ran a hand through his hair. Hermione found herself mildly impressed by the sight.

"So what do you suggest I do?" she asked.

"If you fail whole test, it would be too suspicious." Draco smirked down at her.

"Can't you sit on a chair?" she barked, irritated.

"Can't you loosen up a bit?" he retaliated. Hermione bit down a remark about small children and enlarged her chair so that their heads were on the same level.

"Is it loose enough for you?"

"You sure don't mess about, do you?" But he grinned at her and that made him look less reptile and more human. "I can stand up."

"So can I."

"On my toes!"

"So you want to hit your head on the ceiling?" He laughed.

"You have to fail just in one detail. And not during the next lesson, he'd just claim you sick or something."

"Just one detail," she repeated sceptically.

"Yeah, one little slip." Draco cocked his head. "You know, there's a beautiful place near the lake where we could talk about it."

"I can't, I have..."

"... Arithmancy in twenty minutes, I know, so do I," Draco finished. "I'm sure you could give that lesson." And he produced his best seductive smile.

* * *

Exactly two weeks later, Snape posed a question Hermione and Draco were waiting for. 

"Miss Granger, what are the ingredients used to make a Polyjuice Potion?" he asked casually, eyes fixed on a parchment he had been reading aloud from - Neville's or Harry's essay, as everyone had assumed from the number of mistakes Snape had pointed out.

"Lacewing flies stewed for twenty-one days, fluxweed picked at full moon, leeches, knotgrass, powdered bicorn horn, three drops of dragon blood and a bit of the person being imposted, sir," Hermione answered so quickly that Snape at first just nodded his head.

Ron frowned and Harry gaped, remembering very clearly there was boomslang skin somewhere in the number. Someone sucked in air in surprise. Impossible had just happenned. Snape stopped walking and lowered the parchment.

"No, Miss Granger, no dragon blood. Incorrect answer," he said slowly. "Anyone who knows?" Draco's hand shot in the air.

"Mister Malfoy?"

"Shredded boomslang skin, Professor," the blonde replied with a smug smirk.

"Exactly," Snape acknowledged and finally looked at Hermione. The girl let her face adopt a shocked expression, then started scrambling through her notes. She raised her eyes to meet Snape's, blushed and uttered simple, "Oh!" The effect was immediate: Snape's shoulders straightened, his face lit up and his lips quirked in a rare smile. All the Slytherins - with the exception of Crabbe and Goyle, too stupid to catch up - followed the suit and Blaise Zabini, obviously smart enough to see through the masquerade, showed Hermione thumbs up and only stopped beaming at her when Draco whacked him around his head.

Having been properly educated, Hermione radiated unhapinness throughout the rest of the lesson.

* * *

"Hermione, are you all right?" Harry watched Hermione's face intently as if she could explode any second. 

"Sure."

"What happenned then?"

"I got it wrong, might happen to anybody."

"It never happens to you!" Ron objected.

"It just did, didn't it? So it _does_ happen to me as well," Hermione reasoned.

"One would say you did it on purpose," Harry said suspiciously.

"To quote one Potter far more intelligent than the one you have here," Draco intervened before Hermione could muster an answer, "I haven't seen anything - but it was marvellous!" Both Ron and Harry gaped as Hermione smiled brilliantly at the hated Slytherin.

Ron actually fainted when _Malfoy_ offered his arm to _Hermione._

"Arithmancy?" Draco asked, ignoring both of them.

"Arithmancy," Hermione answered, accepted the arm.

* * *

**Epilogue**

"Albus! That's outrageos! It's against the rules, it's..."

"If I understand correctly, Severus, Hermione pretended to be wrong just to make you happy. That was very nice of her and maybe it means she would like to make friends with you."

"She's a Gryffindor," Snape muttered unhappilly.

"Yes, it was also a brave thing to do," Dumbledore remarked, amused.

"She's a student!"

"I've noticed."

"It's..."

"... thoughtful from such a young one, isn't it?" Snape stared at him disbelievingly. "I'm sure there's a lot she could still learn from you," Dumbledore added softly.

As Snape was descending the stairs, he added quietly: "And a lot you could learn from her."

* * *

**A/N:** Yes, I like to think they will become friends. Someday. I might write about it... someday. But I don't promise anything (I come with absolutely no warranty, you know). You may appreciate the beauty of things not being said aloud in this little stupidity (I'm the lazy one). 

The Potter Draco is quoting is Colonel Sherman Potter from MASH. The quotation might be inaccurate in wording, I only know the Czech translation. It's from episode "Some 38th Parallels", season 4.


End file.
